1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus to which a plurality of communication devices are connectable, and a communication device switching method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an electronic apparatus such as a personal computer (PC) has been commonly used to communicate with an external apparatus via a network.
An electronic apparatus such as a PC can be provided with various communication devices (devices corresponding to various communication functions such as a dial up adapter, a cellular telephone, and a radio network) in order to carry out various communications depending on applications.
These communication functions are provided as devices built in the electronic apparatus or externally installed thereon, and are statically or dynamically managed under the control of an operating system (OS) running on the electronic apparatus.
When the electronic apparatus such as a PC is provided with a plurality of communication devices, a user must perform switching operations to enable or disable each of the communication devices in order to accomplish desired communications. However, it is not easy for the user to switch the communication devices.
The functions and configuration of recent electronic apparatus are very complicated. It is thus virtually impossible to simply switch connections using hardware. Further, if software is used for such switching operations, the user is forced to perform very complicated operations. In particular, dynamic switching operations require very high skills.